


Small Mercies

by DecoySocktopus



Category: Kraken - China Mieville
Genre: Bad Guys Made Them Do It, Characters Wanted It But Not Like This, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 20:52:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19411186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecoySocktopus/pseuds/DecoySocktopus
Summary: The workshop stank of steel and gore; there was an aftertaste of pain that lingered in Billy’s molars, like spoiled garbage on a street corner. The place was empty, but the ghosts lingered. This was an abattoir for souls. This was where the Tattoo made his machine-men.





	Small Mercies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [track_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/gifts).



The workshop stank of steel and gore; there was an aftertaste of pain that lingered in Billy’s molars, like spoiled garbage on a street corner. The place was empty, but the ghosts lingered. This was an abattoir for souls. This was where the Tattoo made his machine-men.

 _There are people out there who’d rather be tools than people_ , Dane had once said, and Billy had not understood, not really. Had perhaps grasped the outline of that psychology, that empty-vessel desperation that would drive someone to fill themselves instead with cogs and wires and knacked-up value. An exchange: lobotomy for utility. Give up your soul and be made an object of. You will be well used.

He still did not understand, but could not bring himself to stop from glancing around, peering like a curious mouse. The drop sheets covering tables, bulging strange. The tool benches. The meat hooks and the industrial saws, and the stained, stained buckets.

And the Tattoo. Who had, despite Billy and Dane’s best efforts, despite their knacked side-stepping and shadow-sticking and caution, managed to capture them again.

The fact that he had once escaped should have come as a comfort to Billy. It did not; he was keenly aware that Dane’s rescue had tipped the balance in his favour, and that through luck alone. It would not work a second time. Dane knelt on his left, hands zip-tied, seething and unarmed. They had been brought straight to the workshop. And quiet though it seemed to be (most of the lights shut off, the machinery slumbering, the workers departed for homes or cages or pens), he knew it was not a place anyone entered with much hope of leaving. Not if they wanted to leave as they had entered.

Through Billy’s jeans, the concrete cold was seeping into his kneecaps. His hands were going numb. He glanced at Dane, saw his fingers flexing, the muscles of his upper arms tensing and relaxing as he fought to keep the blood flow steady. Tried to copy what he saw.

The Tattoo stood in front of them. He was flanked by two of his _people_ in their jeans and jackets, the motorcycle helmets hiding the hands underneath, the normal hands gripping his biceps hard to keep him in place. The Tattoo grinned; the shirtless man underneath him moaned into a scrap cloth gag.

A small part of Billy pitied the host; a part that had not yet grown callused with the hunt, the fear, the brutality, the dust of streets and strange knacking. He wondered what awful things that man had witnessed. Wondered if his dreams were any worse than Billy’s these days.

“The trouble you two have caused me,” the Tattoo was saying. Its lines twitched and bent with uncanny realism, it furrowed its red brow and opened its inked lips and its expression was one of utter hatred. “The shit I have had to dig through to uncover you both, you would not believe. Had Goss and Subby on your tail for however-the-fuck long, and even then it took ages. And now here you are. And where’s the kraken, eh? Where’s it got to?”

Billy said nothing. Next to him, Dane shrugged his shoulders, clenching fists in the small of his back.

“No idea,” he said. “Could be some in the ocean, have you tried there?”

“You’re not a funny man, Dane Parnell. And now is not the time to learn how.” The Tattoo twisted into an awful grin, teeth stretching most of the way across its cheeks. “Listen. How’s this then: I’ll let you go. You and your whatever, disciple or tagalong or catamite, Billy the mystery. You give me what I want, you go free. That’s a fair deal. Fairer than you deserve. Just tell me where that slab of putrid calamari can be found.”

“Fuck you, I will not,” Dane said clearly. “How about we just go for the classics, then? Thumbscrews and what have you. I never known you for being the creative type, so why start now? Go on. I’m good for it. Let’s see if your equipment breaks before I do.” He was brash, outright swaggering despite the cuffs, and Billy knew that he was terrified. Not for himself; not Dane, the kraken-crusader, the squid-warrior. Dane the holy man, who didn’t fear death, but welcomed its drifting tendrils with open arms and prayer.

It was Billy he was scared for.

“Prick,” said the Tattoo, sounding delighted. “You want thumbscrews, is it? You want a nice, drawn out death, so’s your associates can get off their arses and mount a rescue mission while you buy them and your mate here some time? Nah. I think we can do better than that.”

It was a cold, uncanny thing, seeing the Tattoo get closer, the man who wore it stepping backwards to make it so. He was still gagged, the host. His eyes wild, gripped at the biceps by the things in motorcycle helmets, those fist-headed atrocities tucked behind tinted visors. They forced him backwards so that the Tattoo might approach.

“Billy,” it said. Inked lips twitched. “Billy, Billy, Billy. How’s things? How’s your little Thelma and Louise escapade, is it good? You enjoying life on the run with the squid man? How’s the honeymoon treating you?”

The man knelt gracelessly, wobbling against the hands that supported him. Billy found himself face to stylised face, inches away, black and red and mocking.

“You ran out on my hospitality,” the Tattoo said. “Did a bunk, when I laid out the red carpet and everything. And there I was, swearing up and down that you didn’t know nothing- and you don’t, do you, you cunning fucker. Neither of you know shit about where the kraken went. Maybe you’ll find it, though. Maybe it’ll let you. That’s what I’m thinking right now, though I’m not sold, and Goss is always at me for my soft heart. Still. I don’t think I’ll be killing you just yet. There’s a chance.”

“Kraken’s not yours,” Dane said. “Not ours, either. Kraken ain’t anyone’s to own.”

“That’s a nice faith you have there,” the Tattoo told him. It didn’t move from its spot in front of Billy; the coloured lips warped grotesquely around vowels and consonants. He imagined he could feel its spit on his cheeks. “Big words for a man who got himself excommunicated. Eh? Church tossed you out, is what I heard. What, didn’t they like your new boyfriend? Never mind. Our lot, we like him just fine.”

It was working itself up to something, some grand and gruesome gesture that it wanted them terrified for. Some awful demand- and though Billy tried to focus, to keep his mind on useful tracks like, _where are the exits_ and _how many of those knuckleheads are there, can we take them, is it just them or are Goss and Subby here too?_ and _where the fuck is Wati, where are the Londonmancers, where are the very few people we can count on to help us?_ he was struggling. Like prodding at a half-formed scab, he could not stop himself from imagining the hells that would be inflicted on them.

Maybe it would ask Dane to kill him. Or him to kill Dane, and Billy already knew he would not, could not, was not capable of any such thing. Maybe instead it would settle for torture; he tried to picture himself with pliers in his hands, hammers and nails and the like, and Dane staying grittily silent beneath him. He flipped the scenario; pictured his own pain. He would not be silent. Unlike Dane, he knew that he’d scream.

Maybe they’d have to watch. Sit in their zip tie cuffs and watch the Tattoo extract bloody lumps from each other. Maybe it’d be a competition of sorts.

Billy hoped that, if given a choice, he would be brave enough to volunteer to go first. It was a nice, heroic thought; be the strong man, the skinny geek with the unexpected nerves of steel, suffering but tough about it. Utterly ridiculous; that wasn’t him. He’d never been like that. He’d stood in his flat and watched Goss crack his jaws wide and eat Leon alive, hadn’t he? Billy was nobody’s hero.

But then he looked over at Dane, met his unshakeable eyes, his projected determination and rage, the tension in his corded muscles, and thought-

_Yeah, actually. Maybe. For Dane, maybe I could._

“Get on with it,” Dane said. He glanced from the Tattoo to Billy, a muscle jumping in his jaw. It was clear he didn’t like the tableau in front of him. Didn’t like Billy as the target of the Tattoo’s cruelty. “Let’s stop wasting time. We both know I ain’t telling you shit, and Billy knows nothing to tell, so he’s not worth the hassle. It’s me you’re after. Let’s see if you can beat some morale into me, eh?”

“Beatings are yesterday’s news,” the Tattoo said. “And anyway, Goss is on a mission for me, and no one does it quite like him. He’d sulk if I left him out. Nah. I was thinking about maybe workshopping Billy here, putting some useful bits in with all that wasted space…but really, what’s the bloody point? And then I was thinking, _fuck me, what’s something new and interesting I can do to keep everyone’s spirits up, we’ve all been so bloody depressing_. Had a bit of a lightbulb moment, actually. You’ll love this.”

The Tattoo’s host was shivering violently, Billy noticed. It was an abstract recognition; he was shivering himself, in the cold of the workshop and the inked-in black stare that would not move away from him. Even speaking to Dane, it stared his way.

“So here’s the deal,” the Tattoo said. “I want some nice, emotional drama for my evening, and there’s nothing good on the telly. But we make do. We make our own fun. Or rather, you make it for us- which is why you’re going to fuck him for me.”

“What,” Billy said. At his side, Dane made a shocked sound, and said nothing.

The Tattoo grinned wide. “You heard. Since you’re both so keen on each other, I thought, why not. How’s that then, Dane? Put on a show for us. Make him do a spot of screaming. Make it good and I might just let you two go, or maybe not. You’re both a bloody nuisance.”

“I can’t,” Dane said at last. He would not look at Billy, he was open and devastated. “ _Fuck_. God, Kraken, oh fuck. Don’t ask me to do that to him. Why can’t you just hurt me, you sadist prick, just cut me open and mess with my guts like you always do to people-”

“Nah,” said the Tattoo. “Mind’s made up. What, _now_ you’re sorry? _Now_ you wish you’d left well enough alone and stayed all safe inside your church? Too late. But I’m not a total monster; I’m leaving you a choice, ain’t I? If you don’t have the stomach for it, my men will. They don’t care what gets their pricks wet. These two, and the ten or so I have waiting outside-”

“ _No_ ,” Dane snarled. “Those things don’t touch him.”

“Well then. There’s your answer.”

Dane was silent, though he clearly ached to say something more. Didn’t dare; now was not the time to wind up the Tattoo, and he knew it. Hated it. He glanced at Billy. The look on his face was unbearable.

“It’s fine,” Billy said quietly. He tried to sound brave about it; tried to sound casual, like it was the easiest thing. “Honest, Dane, it’s fine. It could be worse. It’s better than thumbscrews.”

“Don’t knock them until you’ve tried them,” Dane said, but the humour wasn’t there. He sat back on his heels. Didn’t seem to know what to with himself.

“It’s fine,” Billy repeated. “I swear. Let’s just…make it work, yeah? It’ll be fine. It will.”

It would not be fine, he knew, and knew that Dane felt the same thing, that they were teetering on the edge of a disaster from which they might not recover. They were a team; they had bonded fast, as though fated to it, they had become to each other something powerful the likes of which Billy had not known before. It felt as if they’d known each other forever. And yet, looking at Dane, Billy was struck with knowing that it was no time at all. That whatever they had, it might not be as strong as he had thought it. They might not survive this atrocity.

And still he looked at Dane and thought, _yeah, but is it that bad? Really? If it’s not like how I think it is, if we’re not actually on the same page and I’m wrong, then maybe this is the only way I get to have him. My one chance._

One more horror among all the rest. And in the face of impending apocalypse, it hardly registered at all.

“I’m in,” Billy said quietly. He saw resignation on Dane’s face, mixed with the guilt and the fervour with which he didn’t want this. It actually stung a little. Billy crushed the feeling down. “And then you let us go, you hear me?”

“Yeah, maybe,” the Tattoo said. “You never know; I might want an encore.” It stood, or rather its host was forced to. From the shadowed doorway through which Billy and Dane had been dragged, more of his henchmen appeared, arranging themselves around the perimeter as though daring them to try something.

One approached with a knife, the dim light catching on its mirrored visor. It cut the zip ties; Billy swore lightly as it nicked his palm, and then his hands were free. He rubbed at them. It was better than looking at Dane.

“So,” he said. The nerves hit full force as circulation slipped back into his fingers, and he shook with them. “So how do we- What- How-”

 _How would you want me if we weren’t here,_ he could not ask. _If it was you and me in a safehouse somewhere, sharing another bed or a floor, sharing your nightmares and my squid dreams. How would you want to have me? I’d do it any which way. It would all be good. It’d be a relief._

None of these were things he could say, and so he settled for a miserable, “clothes off, then?” and flinched away from Dane’s dull nod.

“Yeah. I guess.”

There was small mercy in the fact that the watching crowd was mostly silent; under their helmets, the modified men had no mouths with which to jeer as Billy fumbled off his cardigan, his shirt, tugged futile at the laces of his shoes. The Tattoo could snicker to himself all he wanted. Even that was somewhat drowned by the gagged-in sobbing of his host.

 _It’s all very well for you,_ Billy thought with a cruelty he hardly recognised in himself. _Just stare at the bloody wall and pretend you can’t hear. Why’s this hard for you? Your only job is to keep your back turned_.

Billy wished he could say the same for himself. There was no order in the untidy pile of clothes he shoved aside and stood shivering next to. Goose bumps broke out across his skin. He thought briefly about chucking his glasses down with the rest of his things, and then could not make it happen. Instead, he looked at Dane.

He was a big man; Billy had always been aware (and how not, when Dane loomed next to him, a muscular bulk that both intimidated and reassured, and anyway Billy had always liked blokes larger than himself). He hardly seemed to notice the cold. There was a grim straightness to his spine, like a soldier at the ready, sent to his death.

And still Billy could not keep from looking him up and down, a hasty, guilty once-over. He could not help but swallow, because Dane was all the things he liked, and he had known it for a while now. He could not know it any less for the circumstances.

He glanced down at Dane’s cock, flaccid and still intimidating, and thought, _Christ._ Tried to crush the nerves that curdled sourly in his stomach. Given time, he’d have enjoyed it very much. Worked his way up to it, with Dane a patient, steadfast presence under his hands, on his tongue. But that was not an option here.

“Get on with it, then,” the Tattoo said. “I’m waiting. And the longer I wait, the more I think maybe I should get some of my men in there.”

“Fuck off,” Dane said. “Just…fuck right off, alright, we’re getting there.” He didn’t move; his eyes flickered over Billy, and maybe he felt as guilty as Billy himself did about it, but he could not seem to stop himself.

“Come on,” Billy said. He sank to the floor, wincing as his kneecaps protested the concrete. This was not going to be comfortable. But that was the least of their problems, really.

They had no lubricant, and the Tattoo would certainly not provide. They could not bear to touch each other at first. Dane knelt at Billy’s side, then seemed to freeze again, and for a moment Billy considered kissing him. But it didn’t seem right. Not here. Not with the Tattoo around to tarnish something that seemed so sacred.

Instead, he spat on his fingers. Ran his hand over Dane’s cock, feeling the big man shudder as he did, feeling one of his hands come up to grip Billy’s bicep. God, he was large. The heat of him in Billy’s hand, the soft unevenness of his breathing in Billy’s ear, were a startling, inappropriate kind of erotic. He felt himself growing hard. Saw Dane notice it too. They looked at each other. And then Billy was hissing through his teeth, bucking up as Dane’s hand closed around his cock, exactly as he’d wanted it. Firm and just on the edge of rough, and he could feel Dane’s eyes on his face the whole time. It was too much to bear.

“Better stop,” he whispered into Dane’s shoulder; successfully fought off the need to bury his teeth in the crook of his neck. “Don’t get me off just yet, don’t you dare.”

“No,” Dane agreed. “Right. Later, then.”

“Yeah.”

They settled with Billy stretched out on the ground, on his back; he’d meant to go to his knees, but Dane was having none of it, muttering, “no, god, not like- I need to see your face. Need to know if you want me to, to stop.”

Dane spat into his own hand, running it over his cock, working himself to full hardness. His chest heaved. He looked as though he wanted to say something, and then as though he didn’t know what. Billy tried to look as though he wasn’t on the verge of panic, as Dane knelt between his legs, lined his cock up and started pushing in.

Billy could not grit his teeth tight enough to stifle a groan; could not choke back his own desperate panting as Dane eased into him, split him open and stretched him out until he was certain he would snap, he would break apart, and he’d known it would be a lot, but this-

 _God,_ Billy thought, clamping a hand over his own mouth. He gasped for breath between his fingers. He sounded every bit as agonised as he had hoped to hide from Dane. _Fuck, god, I knew he was big. I knew it, I wanted it, I want him still, but this is so fucking much, Christ_. He bit into the meat of his palm and felt Dane stop, barely inside him, frozen and horrified.

“Billy,” he said. “I can’t. I’m sorry, you’re too- I need you to relax a bit, I can’t do this.” His voice was rough; he sounded seconds away from screaming.

 _Relax_ , he asked, and there was so much Billy would do for him, but this seemed impossible. How, with the Tattoo and his helmeted monstrosities watching, with the workshop tables and tools and bloodstains all around, and the concrete hard against his spine? How, with spit for lubricant, when Billy could already tell Dane was larger than any boyfriend he’d ever had? How, when Dane could hardly bring himself to move?

Some of it must have shown on his face; Dane sucked in a breath. He laid a hand on one of Billy’s knees, gripping gently.

“Trust me,” he said. “I know it sounds…I know. But you done it before in worse situations, and I need you to do it again now. I’ll take it slow. I ain’t going to hurt you worse than I can help.”

“I know,” Billy told him. He was dazed with the pain and the knowing that _this was Dane, Dane was actually fucking him, and he was not ready in the slightest_. But still he found it in himself to reach out with a hand that still ached, the ghost of his teeth in his palm. Clumsily, Dane linked their fingers together. It wasn’t knacking. It wasn’t anything, but still Billy breathed easier for it. He felt the muscles in his abdomen give in, the awful tension in his thighs and shoulders and neck fade out. Felt Dane squeeze his hand hard and not move in the slightest.

He would not, Billy realised. Not until he was told to. Dane, the fervent warrior-priest, brutal and efficient and utterly unwilling to hurt him.

Billy exhaled. “Now,” he said; the pain was diluted, washed out by a wave of such incredible affection for Dane and all that he was. All that he refused to be. “Go on. I trust you, I…Dane. Move.”

It was easier. He felt less like he would die of how much it hurt, how much his body screamed rejection of the impossible stretch. Now he could plant his feet flat on either side of Dane’s thighs, brace himself and make it easier for Dane to enter him. And Dane was as good as his word; he was slow, though it must have been agony to him. He moved in tiny increments, feeling his way through it, one hand dropping to fist around Billy’s softened cock.

“Aw,” the Tattoo said, cooed grotesquely, and Billy flinched. He felt Dane do the same. They’d both almost forgotten the audience. “How sweet. Lovebirds, the two of you. How’s that going for you then, Billy? You was looking a bit unsure back there, is he not being gentlemanly? Such a shame. That’s the kraken lot for you.”

Billy closed his eyes. “Ignore him,” he muttered. “Doesn’t matter, he’s just noise. Don’t you stop.”

He was growing hard again, twitching the deeper Dane pressed into him, his throat tight with holding in sounds he didn’t want to hear from himself. It seemed to go on forever; there could not possibly be more. But every time he swore he’d reached his limit, he was proven wrong.

And still, he could feel himself warming to it. Despite the Tattoo’s comments, that awful laugh, despite it all.

“There you go,” Dane said shakily. “Good man, that’s it. Billy. You’re doing good.”

“Yes, I bloody am,” Billy said, dazed with it all, with Dane so deep in him he could hardly breathe for it. “Could you please fuck me now, I think I’m dying.” And still he could not hold in a moan as Dane pulled back, far enough that the tip of his cock tugged at Billy’s edges, leaving him too hollow, too cold.

Dane wasn’t rough about it. He’d promised, and he stuck by it, though sweat glistened on his chest and his hands slipped, and he couldn’t hide how much he ached to go faster. He fucked Billy in increments, light thrusts that went deeper sometimes, others not. He was a tensed and half-tamed beast; Billy could only watch him, losing the fight to keep himself silent, groaning with every thrust.

He grabbed for his own cock, leaving Dane’s hands free to hoist his hips up and pull him closer, to push so deep and fast that Billy could feel nothing else.

Billy’s head fell back to strike the concrete. He yelled. Felt himself tighten up around Dane, felt his vision blur and his throat ache as he came over his stomach. In the distance, the Tattoo cackled. Billy hardly heard him.

“Dane,” he said. “Dane, oh god, Dane, please.”

Dane made an incoherent noise. He quivered; Billy watched him close his eyes, watched the pain/pleasure on his face, watched him crack and give way and could not help but love him for it. There. They had managed. Achieved what had seemed impossible, and perhaps they might survive it after all.

Tentative, he touched Dane’s thigh.

“Dane,” he said. Watched the other man open his eyes, exhale hard, and tried to ask a question without words. _Are we going to be alright. Will you forgive me and yourself. Do we survive this._

Exhausted, Dane gave his hand a rough pat. “Yeah,” he said. He didn’t need to say anything else. They looked at each other and knew it all anyway. Whatever happened next, they understood each other.

Somewhere in the shadows of the workshop, glass crunched.


End file.
